Your Dreams Are Mine Now (6 page)

Rupali lay on her bed staring at Saloni. She wondered if her roomie was gutsy or mad. She decided Saloni was a bit of both.

‘You are unbelievable!’ Rupali finally spoke, shaking her head. In spite of herself, she could not hold back her smile.

Saloni took that gesture as her reward for her brave act. She threw her hands up in the air and smiled back. Then she blew a few flying kisses.

‘You’re mad!’ Rupali laughed and further asked, ‘But isn’t Imran from science section?’

Seeing her roomie’s level of interest increase, Saloni replied, ‘Yes, he is! But how did you know?’

‘I just know. But you first tell me, how did you guys meet?’ Rupali inquired.

An overexcited Saloni jumped out of her bed and jumped in to join Rupali on her bed.

‘Udhar ho, phir sunaati hun saari kahaani.’
(Make some space, and I will tell you the whole story.)

Saloni loved telling stories. She also knew how to make them spicy and extra gossipy. She derived a lot of pleasure in narrating the whole episode of how she had met Imran, for the very first time, at the basketball court. It had happened in the first week of the semester. It wasn’t love at first sight for her. But she had definitely found Imran to be one of the most handsome guys in the first year batch.

While she was an amateur in the game of basketball, Imran was a champion. Besides his good looks, Imran’s sporty personality was like icing on the cake. Saloni herself was a head-turner on campus. They’d met quite by coincidence.

There weren’t many girls who played basketball in the first year. One late evening, Saloni had jogged to the basketball court. But finding no one there she decided to jog back to the hostel. Suddenly, she heard someone shout, asking her to stop.

Saloni turned around to see Imran. He stood on the other side of the court in the dark, holding the ball in his hands. It took Saloni a few seconds to spot him in the darkness. Imran switched on the floodlights from the corner of the court. The lights took their time to come on, only gradually lighting up the court.

‘You came here to play?’ Imran asked as he walked towards Saloni, juggling the ball in his hands.

‘Yes, but the other girls haven’t come today. I am not sure why,’ Saloni said.

‘That’s strange, not many boys turned up today as well and, those who did, left early. That’s why I had just switched off the lights,’ Imran explained.

Then there was silence as both didn’t have anything to say. They looked at each other and smiled. The two of them knew each other’s names, but they pretended as if they didn’t. So they introduced themselves. Then Imran offered his hand for a handshake. Saloni was delighted to accept. Secretly, Imran was overjoyed feeling Saloni’s palm in his own hand.

They might not have officially known each other, but they had definitely had a few quick interactions on the court earlier—sometimes while passing the ball, it fell into the other side of the court. But that evening was definitely the first time when they were alone together, with no one else around them. The darkness around them till the floodlights came on actually helped to build a bond. Till then, they had been mere acquaintances. But after that evening, their lives took a different turn. Imran invited Saloni to play a game, if she didn’t mind—just the two of them.

‘I . . . I don’t know. I am not very good at the game . . . And we don’t even have the team,’ she blurted out. Of course she wanted to play with Imran when no one was there.
Then why had she given this silly excuse?

She didn’t know. She only cursed herself and wished if by some means she could take her words back.

Imran came to her rescue and offered a quick reason for Saloni to play. ‘Oh! We can just play a half court three-pointer. And don’t worry, I’ll help you,’ he said with a smile.

Saloni nodded. She was looking forward to Imran’s company. They played for about half an hour, enjoying each other’s company.

Saloni gave Rupali, who listened in rapt silence, a detailed description of how wonderful it had been.

‘Oh baby, you should look at him when he jumps to dunk the ball. He holds the ring and does a chin-up. Too hot to handle!’ Saloni said clapping her hands, her eyes twinkling as she recounted her love story so far.

Rupali heard her as if it was a magical story.
Was she going to have her own love story? Would anyone ever fall in love with her?

Six

One hot afternoon, Rupali stepped out of her hostel for a brief interaction with one of her professors to clear a doubt she had regarding his paper. Prof. Mahajan taught accounts in the college. He was one of the more well-known faculty members. Getting a 10-minute one-to-one meeting with him was a big deal and he had accepted Rupali’s request only after seeing her enthusiasm on the subject. ‘If I am here day after tomorrow, you can come by 2 p.m.,’ he had said.

Rupali wouldn’t have required to meet Prof. Mahajan in person had it not been for the upcoming student union elections that had disrupted classes in the entire DU in an unimaginable way. Prominent walls of the campus buildings shamelessly mocked the election regulators’ norm of not pasting bills and posters on the wall. They were all over the place, from the main entrance gates to inside the college toilets.

Amid the high drama of political outfits announcing their manifestos and their candidates, the loud sloganeering and clashes in the campus, and the numerous print media reporters hovering around, attending classes was the last thing on students’ minds.

But then there were students like Rupali, who instead of wasting their time, thought of utilizing the same to kick-start their upcoming project work for the semester. Politics never interested Rupali. She was far apart from the world of elections, so much so that, unlike the majority of DU students, she didn’t even know who all were standing for the posts and which parties they belonged to. She wasn’t too sure if she knew the names of all the political outfits fighting the elections in DU and it didn’t bother her. She had her priorities. She had come all the way from Patna to Delhi to study. She wanted to stay away from taking sides in campus politics.

Rupali and Saloni were in the same project group. Both of them had one individual project, as well as one group project to complete by the subsequent month-end. When it came to her group project, Rupali had little expectation from Saloni. In fact, Saloni had opted to do a project with Rupali because she knew that she could relax and let the studious girl in their group complete it. Any interference from her would only bring the quality down, is what she kept reminding Rupali.

Given the circumstances in college and the nature of her roommate, Rupali thought it wise to use the election period to accomplish as much of the project as possible. The project was on the subject of accounts and she sought Prof. Mahajan’s time with regard to the same.

Rupali reached the college on time. The unofficial mass bunk of all classes had turned the college block into a lifeless building. The open lawns and the main administrative blocks stole the limelight—for they were the new centres of mass gatherings.

She walked into the college building amid the abandoned classrooms and took the staircase to go straight to the accounts department.

But when she reached Prof. Mahajan’s cabin, she found the door locked. She looked at her watch. It was exactly 2 p.m. She wondered if she should hang around for a while. The professor could have been held up.

When he did not arrive even after ten minutes of her waiting, she went to look at other faculty members’ cabins in the department to check if, by any chance, Prof. Mahajan was there. She checked the HOD’s office as well. But to her dismay, she didn’t find anyone from the department. In fact, she didn’t come across a single human in the area. The whole floor was desolate!

Rupali was about to walk back in disappointment when, all of a sudden, she heard someone running up the staircase in her direction.

It turned out to be the peon who worked in the accounts department.

Finally seeing a face on that deserted floor, Rupali quickly asked him,
‘Bhaiya, Prof. Mahajan kahan hai, pata hai?’
(Do you know where Prof. Mahajan is?)

‘Prof. Mahajan! Hmmm . . .’ the peon murmured as he looked up at the ceiling, trying to recall where he had last seen the professor.

She kept waiting till the peon looked back at her, only to shake his head from left to right.

No, he hadn’t seen him around. So he turned back to leave. Giving out a sigh of disappointment, Rupali placed her notebook back in her bag. She had no choice but to go back to her hostel. Suddenly, her phone rang. The sound of the phone shocked her as it echoed in the empty corridor. She quickly pulled it out of her bag and looked at the number. It was her brother Tanmay calling from Patna. This sort of cheered her up. She quickly zipped her bag and picked up the call.

‘Hello,’ she said smiling.

‘HELLO!’ she said loudly the second time.

‘HELLO . . . be loud, I am not able to hear you,’ Rupali’s loud voice echoed in the silent dark corridor.

‘Yahaan signal nahi aata. Us taraf jaaiye,’
(The network is weak here, go to that side.) The peon shouted from behind Rupali, pointing his finger in the opposite direction on the same floor.

Rupali followed the instructions in haste.

But by the time she walked down the dark corridor and arrived on the other side of the building, the call had dropped. So she tried to call back. But then, the very next moment she disconnected the call for there was something that had suddenly caught her attention.

In front of her was a window and there was some movement she could detect inside. As the outside was comparatively darker than the inside, Rupali had a clear view without anyone from inside being able to easily notice her. From a narrow gap in between the panes of the window she saw something that shook her.

She saw the back of a lady, who from her dress, appeared to be a lady peon from the college. She was standing in front of a man who sat on the edge of a table with his feet comfortably touching the ground. Rupali could barely see him. But what was clearly obvious was that he was running his hands over her back, up inside her blouse. The lady peon’s body language showed her reluctance. She was trying to pull herself out of the man’s grip. Yet she wasn’t shouting, but murmuring. She repeatedly tried to pull the man’s hand out of her blouse. But the man persisted, clearly pushing himself against her will. For one moment, when the peon managed to step away, Rupali was able to see the face of the man. It was as if her fears had come true.

Prof. Mahajan stretched his hand to grab the peon’s arm. Rupali was scared. She knew she had no business being there and that this could be dangerous for her. She pulled herself back and tried to breathe. Suddenly, she felt a heaviness, as if a wave of nausea hit her. She began sweating profusely and felt as if she was going to throw up.

Was this really happening or could it be a nightmare?

But the peon’s low distressed voice told her it was really happening. She took a moment to digest that a highly respected professor of her college was actually forcing himself on a lady peon. A part of her mind told her to run away and forget what she had seen. But then the thought of the lady peon began to bother her and she stopped. It was certain what was happening behind the closed doors and within the walls of the vacant faculty room wasn’t an act of mutual choice. She had witnessed the signs of silent and hesitant protests of the peon. And if she walked away, it would haunt her for the rest of her life.

So she thought to herself for a few moments. She recalled her baba’s words, ‘Stand for what is right and do not let evil persist.’ She knew what she was going to do. And when she had made up her mind, she looked here and there and stepped closer to the window again. She was scared of being caught doing what she was about to do. Yet she was determined.

Right then, her phone rang. It was Tanmay again.

‘Shit!’ she uttered and immediately disconnected the call, and put her phone on silent mode. She quickly sent an SMS to Tanmay telling him that she would call him back in a while.

Rupali, with all her guts, turned back to look through the window. Prof. Mahajan had by now managed to lay the lady down on the table, her sari riding all the way up to her knees. She was still trying to push him away, but the professor being stronger, did not seem to bother. Rupali could hear her pleading with him to leave her alone. But the professor kept telling her that he would let her go very soon and all she had to do was show her willingness.

Outside the window, Rupali quietly put the cellphone between the windowpane and held it at an angle behind the curtains. She then zoomed in on the scene and began recording. For the next couple of minutes she filmed everything that happened inside the room.

The moment the professor unzipped his pants, Rupali realized that she couldn’t be a mute spectator any longer. Besides, she wasn’t prepared to handle the anticipated visuals. It was time for some action. She already had enough evidence. Now all she had to do was rescue the peon. She knew she had to be discreet.

So she went to the end of the corridor from where she had come and started walking back towards the same window. This time she made noise with her feet, loud enough to be heard by the people inside the faculty room. She casually tapped on the door and a few windowpanes and faked talking to someone over the phone. She was loud in her fake conversation as well.

‘What, you are outside? I am in the building. Why don’t you all come here? It will take you a minute. You guys can do the election campaign planning here! No, no, there is no one here. It’s absolutely empty,’ she said, walking up and down the corridor, making her words audible to the people inside the room.

‘Wait. I will come down. Meet me at the ground floor. Bye,’ she said.

When she was done, she quietly walked down and waited for a few minutes on the ground floor. She realized that her trick had worked when, the next moment, she saw the frightened peon walking out of the building in haste.